1. Field
The present disclosure relates to performing copy and/or data management operations in a computer network and, in particular, to systems and methods for managing stub files in a data replication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computers have become an integral part of business operations such that many banks, insurance companies, brokerage firms, financial service providers, and a variety of other businesses rely on computer networks to store, manipulate, and display information that is constantly subject to change. Oftentimes, the success or failure of an important transaction may turn on the availability of information that is both accurate and current. Accordingly, businesses worldwide recognize the commercial value of their data and seek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored on their computer networks.
To address the need to maintain current copies of electronic information, certain data replication systems have been provided to “continuously” copy data from one or more source machines to one or more destination machines. These continuous data replication (CDR) systems provide several advantages for disaster recovery solutions and can substantially reduce the amount of data that is lost during an unanticipated system failure.
One drawback of such CDR systems is that synchronization of the source and destination machines generally requires the same amount of storage space on both the source and destination. Thus, not only do many conventional CDR systems require large amounts of disk space, but they also tend to be less useful for general data backup purposes.